x86 assembly feature–on the way

By
12.21.2001 :: 12:47PM EST

Picture this. It's 1978, Douglas Adams has just released The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, you can buy leaded gasoline at all service stations, and selections from Led Zepplin IV are being played start to finish on the radio night and day! But, all that's not really important to you … for you are at a “product release party” for a little known company called Intel. You know that soon they'll be showing off what you came to see, their latest and greatest: the 8086 microprocessor. You're confused, excited, palms sweaty. You ask yourself, “What does it mean? How fast can it go?” You've marveled in awe at the pre-release literature, its blazing 4.77MHz clock speed, its 16-bit(!!) integer capability, and available floating point support. You're forced to simply shake your head, look down, and wonder how anyone could possibly ever use the ONE MEGABYTE of RAM it's capable of addressing. It's a boggle! You'll soon find yourself wanting because Intel is about to announce that their 8086 chips will power a new IBM product, a personal computer! Amazing! A few years later, as you master IBM's Writing Assistant, you again marvel at Intel. This time it's for the 80286 in 1982. But your true, unadulterated, appreciative passions were (unbeknownst to you) lying entirely in wait for Intel's next one! The biggie! The wholly remarkable 80386, released in 1985. It was *THE 80386* and its defining standards which single-handedly ushered in the days of real computing power for the masses. In the near future ChipGeek will play host to a comprehensive feature onx86 assemblyto be released in its entirety. A whole new world of programming possibilities will be revealed.

USER COMMENTS 24 comment(s)

Memories….(1:34pm EST Fri Dec 21 2001)Ahhh…1978. The buzz of Star Wars was was on the air, John Revolta and the Bee Gees were cool, the EPA had just killed off two-stroke street bikes, (Long live the Kawasaki Triples!) and Elvis was still dead.

The closest we came to computers was about 1980-81 when my brother got a Apple II and my father got me a TI 99/4 which I never used. Queen was cool and so was Flash Gordon. So was Saturday Night Live.

Later in 1984 we got a $6,000 TI professional computer, which was an 8088 IBM *in*compatible. Big Brother didn't show up until about ten years later, so much for Orwell.

My slowest machine is 183 times faster in clock speed than the 8086, has more Ram than most hard drives had up until the early nineties, and still runs an OS Made By Bill(tm).

Three years ago I built an IBM PC from spare parts for about $5. I realized I can still drive a 1981 car and use most appliances and devices from that time, but for computers 1981 isn't even a nice place to visit. 1978 is but a hazy memory…… – by Ziwiwiwiwiwiwiwiwiwi

1978(1:58pm EST Fri Dec 21 2001)Bah.. I was like one year old so I can't really remember any computers:) – by InfiniteLoop

Ah, yes…(2:02pm EST Fri Dec 21 2001)Though I did not have a computer then (my first was an Atari 800) '78 held some fond memories for me… I think (much of it was lost in a cloud of smoke).

But in the early 80's, I remember thinking how cool COMBAT LEADER from SSI was (even though it took about 20 minutes to load off of the cassette tape!).

Then my jealousy took hold, my friend up the street (also owned an Atari) got a “DISK DRIVE” for it! WOW! You mean, one of those things holds 88KB!? Incredible! (great info ).

Then the Commodore 64 came out and MAN, the BBS is in COLOR! Cool! I was soooo jealous…

Just my $0.02 worth,

– by myrkat

'78 “Hardware”(3:20pm EST Fri Dec 21 2001)I was using my trusty TI SR-52 – 2 years later, it was stolen and I bought a TI-59 and cradle, which I still have. [Woooo! Hi-Tech!] Most often used programs – learning curve programs I wrote for them. [Prior to that, did most learning calculations using tables of factors and a desktop calculator – precise! [NOT!]

– by rdn

Seattle Computer vs. IBM PC(9:45pm EST Fri Dec 21 2001)I bought one of the Seattle Computer 8086 CPU board sets when they first came out. 16-bit 8086 at EIGHT Mhz. I soon after bought three 256 KILObyte Godbout RAM cards. Then IBM come out with their wimpy 8-bit 8088 at 4.77 Mhz, with a base 16 KILObyte RAM. They did have one advantage – a color graphics card that did not break the bank. That, and being a *major* computer company, unlike all the others using the new 16-bit CPUs (Godbout also had a 68000 CPU card, as well as a dual 8085/8088 CPU card). I later went to an IBM XT clone when the Paradise EGA card came out… – by cpotato

Wow, back in the day…(12:06am EST Sat Dec 22 2001)1978 I remember my father taking me to see Star Wars. I also remember getting my first computer – a Commodore Vic 20, which if I remember correctly, had a whopping 2k of ram. Then I graduated to the C64 and learned basic and assembly language. Worked my way into many of the crack groups of the time. The C64 was a hallmark at the time – nothing could touch it in terms of graphics and sound. Oh yeah, and the cartridges. I eventually got a tape player/recorder for it and I actually got a 1541 disk drive later (for the tune of around $400). Boy how things have changed! – by Ziggy

Does anything still work?(11:56am EST Sat Dec 22 2001)

For some reason, I don't think that the computers of today would last twenty years. (A lot of stuff runs so fast and hot today).

Does anyone still have something from long ago that still works?

My first computer was a TI-99. It stopped working a long time ago. I threw it out in the trash and someone rescued it.

– by ETA HININ

ahem…(1:41pm EST Sat Dec 22 2001)my uncle has a trs-80 from 1980 that he still uses! he's 98 yrs old and does very little with it, types letters and pays bills (basic spreadsheet), etc. he doesn't want to move on b/c it does what he needs.

he still uses a daisywheel printer that sounds like a machine gun…

the only problem is that he needs the old 8″ 180kb floppy disks to save his work too. they don't make 'em anymore but around 5 years ago i was able to get him about 50 blanks for $1. so, they'll probably outlast him!

that's mean, but true. – by mdguy

ps…(1:44pm EST Sat Dec 22 2001)i doubt my athlon xp 1700+ will last anywhere near 20 years, if i wanted to use it that long.

modern machines aren't that great after a while…

hopefully the industry will figure out better ways to deal with heat. – by mdguy

The Old days (5:31pm EST Sat Dec 22 2001)I remember my dad having a TRS-80. I used it to play a game called “Hunt the Wumpus”. He used cassette tapes to save and load programs. If you didn't set the volume right the programs wouldn't load/save. He also had a modem on which you actually had to put the phone receiver. Later he got a C-64, on which I wrote a 4 X 4 X 4 tic tac toe program. I had to be careful because the version of BASIC that came with the C-64 only read the first two characters of the variable names. I grew tired of the program quickly because it took so long for the computer to calculate its next move.

– by GeeForce

Had to add another one(10:29pm EST Sat Dec 22 2001)My first computer was one that I built around '74. Used a “rotory phone dial” to shift in binary sequences that displayed on light bulbs. Had toggle switches for plus/minus/times/divide. It could do 8 bit math!

Had a “pong” around '78. One game, one machine and a TV, what more could you ask for. And did I mention the “square” ball ?

Around 79/80 I got an Atari 800, the Apple II was cool, but to expensive. Went on to an Atari 1200, even designed and built a “1 meg” memory upgrade for the machine. The 1200 was a sweet machine. You could boot a mac on it from its ROM slot .. cool.

I haven't been intersted in a “game machine” for a while. Computers are powerfull enough now for almost any task that's important for a “home user” and not powerfull enough for work.

I'd have to say that today, the “real computer” is the internet! Our PC's have become little more than green screens for the internet.

– by NetGuy

yeah but…(3:31am EST Sun Dec 23 2001)could your 8086 do multi tasking?!?!?!you forgot to mention the greatest thing about the 386, not only could it do 16 bit, it could do 32 bit! wowzers!16 years later microsoft would finally release a true 32 bit OS, ah the joys of not having to do work because you have a monopoly.

my first computer was a comodore 64, getting it and stuff is a big haze, but i remember playing spy hunter on it, and a few other games. i really enjoyed the 486 we got in december 1994, it was the best system money could buy, 486 DX2 66, 540mb hard drive, 8mb RAM, a 14.4 modem, sound card, SVGA monitor and 512kb of Cache.what sucked is that windows 95 and the pentium processor came out right after and our system became outdated in under a year. *sigh* – by Synonymous

Synonymous(10:02am EST Sun Dec 23 2001)

The 8086 was capable of doing multi-tasking. However, it did not provide hardware mechanisms for isolating programs from one another.

However, if all programs were bug free, the 8086 was most capable of running a multi-tasking operating system.

– by Rick C. Hodgin

Synonymous(7:21pm EST Sun Dec 23 2001)Hmm, Isn't NT a true 32 bit OS?

Anyways no one had a use for 32 bit at home until memory prices dropped. So what difference did it make. – by Etcetera

wrong….(11:27pm EST Sun Dec 23 2001)you need a 32-bit os to utilize the 32bit chip, which is important in order to:

address up to 4 gigs of memory, imagine if we were still on the 640k limit…

for preemptive multitasking – by mdguy

i stand corrected(2:54am EST Mon Dec 24 2001)its amazing i stand at all – by Synonymous

Re: Wrong…(2:55am EST Mon Dec 24 2001)You are correct.

– by etcetera

Douglas Adams(5:48am EST Mon Dec 24 2001)The late D. Adams, rest his soul, used to be an Apple Master… – by Johan-Olof=konijn

etcetera…(11:37am EST Mon Dec 24 2001)no biggie. – by mdguy

mdguy(1:01pm EST Mon Dec 24 2001)

You can have pre-emptive multi-tasking in a 16-bit non-protected environment (i.e., 8086 or 80386's REAL MODE). Any interrupt driven microprocessor can be programmed for pre-emptive multi-tasking. The only downside is that without the 80386's protected mode and its ability to isolate programs from one another, if one program crashes on the 8086 or in 80386's REAL MODE it has the potential of taking down the entire system.

– by Rick C. Hodgin

getting on line with rotory phone service(6:04am EST Wed Oct 09 2002)My parents are out in the middle of nowhere,and they still have rotory phone service.They would very much like to get on line.Is there any internet service that has a special disc for connecting to it's service?PS.Early 80'sDream Zone game on Apple GSII,what memories that brings back.Let the game load while you have dinner and take shower.Technology in the last 20years,are we going to fast or not fast enough? – by C.Moore

Daisywheel printer VS XP(7:54am EST Thu Mar 06 2003)And the winner is?!. I have a Swintec Compumate 2100 I my new gateway will not let me print without software for that printer: But I know of none . . . What can I use to get XP and Swintec compatible???Edade123@bellsouth.netMarch 6, 20037:51am est – by Ed

Nothing will last for a long time(2:36pm EST Tue Jun 08 2004)I have bought an Pentium-3 processor anddeveloped an Operating system from scratch compatible with any x86 processor. The language used was assembly languge purely in all sense. But I am doubtful that how long x86 processor will remain?